


Akhùthûzh

by sourassin (scherryzade)



Series: Dwarrowdams [6]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Communication Failure, Dwarven Traditions, F/M, Female Kíli, Kíli is still reckless, M/M, Misgendering, Perceived Incest, Unrelated Fíli and Kíli, misgendering due to dwarven paranoia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 18:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5795932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scherryzade/pseuds/sourassin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo understands that dwarven society is very different from polite - from hobbit society, but spilt ale and unwashed socks are easier to stomach than the obvious intimacy of Thorin's nephews.</p>
<p>In which long held dwarven traditions about disguising their womenfolk causes some confusion and concern for Bilbo on their quest, not helped at all by Thorin's inability to communicate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Akhùthûzh

**Author's Note:**

> Original posted to the kink meme - started in October 2013 and finished, uh, now - for the prompt: 
> 
> "Fem!Kili is only a Durin by marriage. Kili's actually Fili's One, and his wife; she took the -li name-ending as her married name. She dresses as a man, and is introduced as Fili's 'brother' to explain why the two spend all their time together..."
> 
> Full prompt and original post here: <http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/8973.html?thread=19417101#t19417101>
> 
> Because I chose to write this from Bilbo's pov, it ended up being as much (if not more) about Bilbo and Thorin as Fili and Kili. And because I wrote half of it before even _Desolation_ had come out, it sticks closer to book canon than film canon - when it sticks to canon, which, admittedly, is not much.

Bilbo tries very hard not to judge them.

He understands, he really does, that dwarven society is very different from polite - from hobbit society. And Bilbo has, he thinks, been very accepting of certain behaviours - mostly involving table manners and cleanliness -

But spilt ale and unwashed socks are easier to stomach than the obvious intimacy of Thorin's nephews.

There's never anything overt - the proximity in which the Company must live as they travel prevents it - and for the longest time Bilbo thinks he's imagining things. After all, Oin and Gloin are just as likely to huddle together on cold nights, and Dori (and Nori, in his own way) is just as likely to fuss over Ori. Indeed, the whole Company has a tendency to coddle Kili, which seems to annoy the lad just as much as the disparaging remarks about his beard.

So for weeks Bilbo thinks, when Kili and Fili sit too close, heads bowed together in conference, or Fili helps his brother over slippery rocks, and his hand seems to linger on Kili's waist, that he is the one at fault, seeing something untoward where only brotherly affection resides.

But there is no mistaking the intent with which Kili curls his arm through Fili's, their second night at Beorn's, nor the heat in his voice when he says, "Come, _brother_ , let's find a quieter room than this."

Bilbo feels his eyebrows reaching for his hairline, but he manages not to gape. He's all the more grateful for his composure when the other dwarves only chuckle in response. Even Thorin, who alone amongst the dwarves seemed to regard their affection with more resignation than acceptance, gives them something close to a smile and dismisses them with a nod. They fairly race for the door, stumbling in their haste, and they're followed by the Company's laughter and a wolf-whistle from Bofur, and Bilbo doesn't know what to make of it.

Thorin must see his discomfort, because Bilbo catches him talking to Fili in low, chiding tones the next morning.

"I do not blame you for last night," says Thorin. "We were all in our cups. But you must be more careful. Bilbo does not understand-"

"He's proved himself part of the Company," protests Fili. "You said as much yourself-"

"But he is not a dwarf," snaps Thorin. "It is not safe! Bad enough that Kili is here at all, without the two of you risking exposure so blatantly."

"Bilbo would understand," says Fili.

"We cannot take that risk," says Thorin. "I am sorry, but we have no choice." He sighs. "And you will have to be the one to convince Kili of it, because Mahal knows I cannot make your beloved kirikhâl do anything."

Bilbo slips away, grateful that Thorin's newfound trust in him does not reach this far, because he is trying, but he doesn't understand. He wishes he did - they're good lads, and it pains him to think ill of them. He doesn't, really, it's only that it doesn't seem right. And the longer he thinks, the less convincing that sounds. It doesn't seem right, and it just isn't done, and he likes them too much to condemn them.

They're careful after that, though Kili grows sullen, and he and Thorin snap at each other all the way to Mirkwood. It only grows worse in the forest, when the darkness starts to fray all their tempers, and Fili stops trying to keep the peace between his brother and their uncle.

Their supplies dwindle, and Bilbo finds himself staring at a half-handful of dried fruit, willing his stomach to stop aching. He can't help noticing that Kili is holding a much fuller handful, though he's looking at it with no more joy.

"Show me," he mutters to his brother, who immediately closes his hand around his own meal. "Show me!"

With a sigh, Fili opens his hand. His portion is no bigger than Bilbo's. "Amadûnh," Kili spits, and for a moment it looks as if he's about to fling the berries across the camp. Instead, he hisses, "I am not a child to be cosseted."

"They mean no harm by it," says Fili, and presses a gentle kiss to the side of Kili's mouth, his free hand reaching for Kili's. Kili's expression crumples, and he sags against Fili, pressing his face into his brother's shoulder.

"I hate this forest," he says, muffled.

"I know, Kili," says his brother, pressing another kiss to Kili's hair. "Kirys, yâsithel-"

"Fili! Kili!" The brothers jerk apart at the sound of their uncle's disapproval, Kili scrubbing at his eyes.

Their distress is so palpable that Bilbo cannot hold his tongue. "You needn't keep them apart on my account," he starts, and then falters when Thorin's glare is turned on him. "I only - well - I can't say I approve, but this forest is most unpleasant, and why shouldn't the lads take what comfort they can?" He can feel his ears grow hot under the dwarves' scrutiny.

Thorin's expression is unreadable, but eventually he gives a terse nod. "Very well." Then, in a voice tinged with irony, he adds, "I suppose someone else should take first watch."

Bilbo does his best not to stare at them - he's supposed to be watching the black, endless forest, after all - but each gentle, familiar kiss they trade seems to catch the corner of his eye.

When Bilbo finally heads for his bedroll, Kili is asleep, curled around his brother, but Fili is awake enough to mouth a "Thank you" at him.

And when he lies down, Bilbo finds a little pile of dried berries beside his blanket.

They call for each other in the dungeons of the Elf King and it breaks Bilbo's heart to hear them, so he carries messages between the boys, endearments in their native tongue that he mangles horribly. Kilmel. Sankidhuz. Kirikhel. Felakâl-Kurduh.

"Ki-roo-, um. Ki-ru-gey-urgh?"

"Khirühgehyûrng," corrects Kili through his laughter. "Oh, tell him I'll get him back for that, my yâdoy. And don't repeat it in front of Thorin."

They cling to each other in Laketown, safe behind barred doors in the house the townsfolk lend to the company, but Bilbo is too sick with a wretched cold to be shocked when he stumbles upon them wrapped around each other in quiet corners.

But the discord between Thorin and Kili continues. When Bilbo finally shakes off his cold and ventures further than the privy, it's to the sound of raised voices.

He reaches the door in time to hear Thorin growl, "Tank ramim yadi khidu, khuzdinhith!" as Kili bursts from the room, expression thunderous.

"You won't convince he-" Fili sees Bilbo in the doorway, and breaks into laughter, no doubt at Bilbo's flustered expression. "Him in that way, uncle. Kirys kirikhâl, remember?"

Thorin snorts, and waves his nephew away. Fili takes off after his brother, but not before clapping Bilbo on the shoulder. "Good to see you looking so well, Bilbo," he says with a smile, and is gone before Bilbo can thank him.

Thorin scowls after his nephew, before shaking his head as if to clear it and turning to Bilbo. "Better?"

"Yes, thank you. I hope I didn't interrupt anything?"

"It's an old argument. Not one either of us will concede."

"I'm sorry."

"Aye, so am I," says Thorin wearily.

Bilbo is so taken aback at the admission that it's a moment before he thinks to say, "Can I ask what's come between you?"

Thorin makes no answer at first, turning away to tend the fire, staring into the depths of the flames until Bilbo assumes the question is forgotten. Then Thorin says "Kili should not be here."

Bilbo frowns. "Like I should not be here?"

Thorin shoots him a rueful look. "I did not say I was in the right."

"Ah." Bilbo joins Thorin by the fire, and they stand in companionable silence. After a while, Bilbo ventures "It would seem hard on them both, to take one, and leave the other behind."

"More than you know," says Thorin. Then he sighs, and says, "I should thank you."

"Thank me?"

"I know our ways are - strange to you, and our secrets many. We may have cause, but I thank you for your forbearance all the same."

Now it is Bilbo's turn to stare into the fire in silence, before he gathers his wits and offers up a mumbled "It's nothing."

After the battle, Bilbo watches numbly as the healers strip them of armour and chainmail and cloth, too heartsick and bone-tired to be shocked at the unexpected softness of Kili's flesh, where Fili has nothing but muscle. Their bodies are both torn and rent, and Bilbo sees only the blood.

"Out of the way! Out!" snaps a dwarven healer, pushing past Bilbo, arms full of bandages. "Or, if you will not go, keep that fool in his bed."

'That fool' is Thorin, half-risen from his bed and reaching towards Fili and Kili. As Bilbo watches, panic churning in his chest at the sight of the dwarven king, Thorin's legs give out from under him. Without thinking, Bilbo rushes to catch him, pushing him back on the bed.

That he can stop Thorin from rising is a horror Bilbo dares not think on, not even when a howl of pain from Fili sets Thorin scrabbling to push past him, and Bilbo stops him with one hand. Thorin hardly seems to see Bilbo, all his attention on Fili and Kili.

"Binkirùkh ma!" Thorin calls to them. "Akhùthùzh mud," he says, voice faltering. "Kirùkh, shomakhîth." His hand, twisted in Bilbo's collar, shakes. "Please."

Bilbo catches Thorin's hand to disentangle it, and the action turns Thorin's attention to him. Bilbo steels himself against Thorin's anger, but none comes. "They should not be here," says Thorin.

"Nor should I," says Bilbo. It does not sound as snappish as he intended. "Nor should any of us," he adds, thinking of the battlefield beyond the tent.

"I've killed them," says Thorin, and Bilbo, thinking of that battlefield, almost says yes. But then he looks towards Fili, struggling beneath the firm hands of the healers, and Kili, lying silent and still, and shakes his head.

"They live yet," he says, with more confidence than he feels.

Thorin only stares at Bilbo dully, disbelieving, and his arm drops to his side.

Bilbo does not know if he is welcome there, but he stays all the same. The chaos that followed the battle abates, and there is space for him to sit beside Thorin and be ignored, and watch as Fili and Kili sleep.

Fili is restless, feverish and distressed, calling out for his beloved.

Kili is very still.

"Skull's cracked, not crushed," says the dwarven healer bluntly. "Mahal be thanked."

"Aye, you do have your maker to thank for that," says his elvish counterpart. "If Aulë had known what he was doing, the child would be dead."

"Does it vex you," snaps the dwarf, "that we dwarrow are so hard to kill?"

"Why should it vex me? Would that all my patients were so ill-made."

Thorin's hands have curled into fists at the exchange, and Bilbo sets a hand of his own on one to quell him. "But will Kili live?" he asks the healers.

The dwarf shrugs, head bowed.

"Aulë willing," says the elf, gently.

Thorin pulls his hand free of Bilbo's and turns his back on them.

Fili's fever breaks, long days after the battle, and he twists on waking to find Kili. He smiles, at first, to see Kili lying so close, and reaches to touch Kili's face. But his smile slips when he sees how still Kili is. The healers flurry to his side when they realise he has awoken, batting his hands away from Kili's broken head.

"Lay still!" they say.

"Kili -"

"Let Kili sleep," they say. "You will both heal the better for it."

When they've gone, he shifts once more, moving as close to Kili as he dares. He reaches for Kili, but does not touch.

"Kili, pet," he whispers, "tank ramim. You must, you must, mud-zu, serj ma, kanon serj, kanon -"

Behind Bilbo, Thorin makes a broken sound, quickly muffled. Bilbo dares not turn to see him.

Later, when Fili has fallen back into fitful sleep, Thorin says, "Kili saved us." His voice is raw, and the sound burns at the back of Bilbo's throat. "Would not let a single blow touch us."

"And you said Kili shouldn't have been there," says Bilbo. His attempt at levity falls very flat.

"Should never - nor Fili. Nor you."

"And then you would be dead, and likely Erebor fallen, and you already know you are in the wrong, you knew that in Laketown, so don't keep saying that, not when - It doesn't change anything, does it?" says Bilbo, suddenly angry. "Kili is here, and I'm here, and we're - we're not dead." Thorin isn't looking at him any more, and Bilbo suspects he's no longer listening. "Or are you still angry that Kili disobeyed you? Do you think Kili a traitor, like me?" He stands, ready to leave.

"No!" Thorin has regained enough strength that when he grabs Bilbo's arm, Bilbo is thrown off balance. Thorin lets go at once, and Bilbo, pulling away, falls arse over tea kettle with an undignified squeak.

When he rights himself, Bilbo finds Thorin staring at him in horror. "I'm sorry," says Thorin, and makes as if to speak further, but snaps his mouth shut after a few long moments of silence.

Bilbo, dusting himself off, says, "Well, it's good to see your strength has returned."

Thorin falls back against his pillows. "Mahal," he groans, "Mâhazu ya' melekûnh?" He stares at the roof of the tent and says, "I cannot fathom why you stay."

"Nor I," says Bilbo. "I'll leave when Kili wakes."

And Kili does wake, in increments. Bilbo stumbles in from the snow one morning to see Kili breathing deep for the first time since the battle. Kili shifts and turns in true sleep, not the dreadful stillness of before, and Fili's murmured prayers, echoed by Thorin, take on a hopeful note.

"Idalag, khidu," says Fili to Thorin.

"Askhâbidi zu," agrees Thorin, somber but clear-eyed.

But Kili's shifting has served to throw into sharp relief the softness that Bilbo has kept from his mind since the hours following the battle, and as happy as Bilbo is to see Kili mending, he cannot share their relief.

He tries to put it from his mind, but it preys on him.

"You are quiet, Master Baggins."

"Am I?" asks Bilbo, coughing to suppress the nervous laughter that threatens to bubble up. "I hadn't noticed."

"You seem much caught up in your thoughts," Thorin says, and then hesitates. Hesitates, and seems almost uncertain when he continues. "Might I ask what holds your attention so?"

Bilbo has no notion as to how to broach the subject with Thorin. He knows so little about their ways, for all that he's spent long months travelling with them. He's struck by a sudden horror that he does not even know what Thorin means when he calls them 'sister-sons'. What if it's common practice amongst dwarves? How can he ask without offering grievous insult -

Thorin must see his discomfort, because he looks away and mutters his apologies. "I have no right to ask you." Then, so quietly as to be almost to himself, "I have no right to ask anything of you."

Bilbo has even less of a notion as to how he should respond to that.

"Dwarves are not much inclined to farming, are they?" he starts.

"You're thinking of your home," states Thorin with such authority that Bilbo doesn't have the will to contradict him. "We have kept you too long from it," Thorin continues. "But Kili will wake soon, and you can return home, as promised."

"Right," says Bilbo weakly. And after all, what business is it of his, when he will be leaving so soon?

When Kili does wake, Fili is watching with a smile. "You needn't be so smug," says Kili, voice rough from disuse, "just because my head hurts and yours doesn't."

"I'm not being smug," says Fili, voice shaky with laughter. "What do you remember?"

"Mm?"

"Tweren't ale that caused your headache, Kirys," says Fili, ever so gently.

Realisation comes to Kili in a rush. "The battle! Thorin -"

"Is well, thanks to you." Fili nods to where Thorin lies, propping himself up on an elbow to watch them. "And Bilbo too, as you see. We are but bruised and a little bloodied, the whole Company. Cousin Dain almost lost his other leg, but it was saved, much to his disappointment. But you -" Fili's cheer shatters, and he ducks his head to rest his forehead against Kili's. "I thought we'd lost you. I thought you'd gone."

"Where would I go?" There's honest confusion in Kili's voice. "Where would I be but at your side?"

Fili kisses Kili, and -

"Gently!" calls one of the healers. "And no dhâhyîri!"

Fili pulls away from Kili half an inch. "Gently," he agrees. And Kili, bringing up a hand to tug on Fili's moustache braids, adds, in a voice more weary than teasing, "There'll be time for dhâhyir later, husband."

It's only then that Bilbo thinks -

"I feel a little foolish, now," he mutters to Thorin, who is watching them with frank affection.

He quirks an eyebrow at Bilbo, enquiring. It's not quite a frown, and Bilbo smiles back.

"They're not brothers."

Thorin huffs in amusement, and turns back to face them. "No."

"Nor brother and sister, either."

Thorin stills beside him, and Bilbo worries that he has overstepped again. "No," says Thorin, voice dust dry. "That's what had you worried? You thought they were siblings?"

"I thought they were brothers, because that's what you all told me!"

Thorin gives a great bark of laughter, quickly cut off as he clutches at his side. "Mahal dharg," he groans.

"I'm not sympathetic at all. Not when I've been made a fool of all this time," says Bilbo, though there's no heat in it, and he helps Thorin ease back onto his pillows all the same.

"We thought you disapproved of them being lads together. If you truly thought them brothers, then you were a deal more kind to them than we realised," says Thorin.

"Yes, well, I saw all kinds of eye-opening things on our journey. That hardly seemed worth mentioning," blusters Bilbo.

Thorin shakes his head, a hint of a smile on his lips. "You could not tell them apart, dark and light as they are?"

"Kili looks more like you than Fili does!"

"Kili? With that Ironfist scruff?" asks Thorin, as if that should mean anything to Bilbo. "Though it's true Fili favours his father, he has the Durin nose - you can hardly have thought that of Kili."

"I - might have?" Now that he's looking for differences, Bilbo wonders a little how he was ever fooled. "But their names! How was I to know they'd given me a false name?"

"Nay, it's no falsehood. Kili is the name we know her by, too."

"Oh. But how - is it just coincidence, then?"

"She took the name on their wedding day, to honour their bond and our family. Do hobbits not have a similar tradition?"

"I suppose we do - wives are said to join their husband's family, and take the family name accordingly. But to change your given name! That's -" Bilbo stops, at a loss. He can't imagine his mother doing such a thing. Not that marriage stopped her being a Took in anything but name.

"It's an old tradition, not much practiced outside the nobility," says Thorin. "Nor much at all since Erebor fell. My sister did not. If Erebor had not fallen, they would have been betrothed very young, and named accordingly." Thorin sighs. "Except Fili's father was a Broadbeam, and Kili is an Ironfist, and none of this would have come to pass if Erebor had not fallen."

Thorin falls silent, his expression growing stormy once more, so Bilbo prods him lightly. "What was her name, before? If I can ask?"

"Kirys. You've heard Fili call her that, I think."

"Ah, I guessed as much. Of all the names he called her, that was the one I heard most often. That or Kirik'aal."

The corner of Thorin's mouth tips up. "Kirys Kirikhâl."

Fili, overhearing them, looks up. "You told him."

"Told him what?" mutters Kili.

"That you're my yâsith,"

"Oh." Kili frowns. "Was it not obvious?"

Bilbo huffs, and they laugh at him, and the healers scurry up to hush them.

It is Kili who says, "But you cannot leave!"

She is still too weak to rise, and though Thorin and Fili are on their feet, Fili will not leave Kili's side unless dragged away, and Thorin is little better.

Bilbo smiles at her, and she scowls back. "If I don't leave now," he says, with as much cheer as he can muster, "the winter snows will -"

"The snow's already set in," she interrupts triumphantly. "You'll have to travel all the way down to the Fords of Isen, and you won't get home til midsummer, so you might as well stay until spring, when you can go over the Misty Mountains."

"I'd really rather go by Rohan," Bilbo counters. "All things being equal." His hand strays to his waistcoat pocket.

Kili looks chagrined for a moment, but swiftly changes tack. "You have to stay until coronation, at least."

"Kili, tikhzh." Thorin's voice has little of the chiding displeasure Bilbo grew accustomed to when he and Kili quarrelled on their journey, but Kili turns her scowl on him all the same. "Ma binbukhubûimâ hi binganag."

"Ma ekhlêchazu," she snaps. "Bâhai mâ! Itkhûzhi mahagnâgizu hi!" She continues to berate him, heedless to the presence of Bilbo and the elvish healers, her voice rising in pitch and volume until her breath catches. Fili and Thorin both reach for her in concern, and she bats them away even as she struggles to breathe.

The healers push them aside to reach her, one snapping, "I'll have you all banned, see if I don't," as another places a steadying hand on Kili's back.

Bilbo is drawn to Thorin's side as they watch, fearful, as Kili's breathing settles, far too slowly. When finally it does, she slumps back on her pillows and scrubs angrily at the tear tracks the bout has left on her face.

"Nê kherêmizu kirikhâl mud, kigh kirêkhi," she says, voice ragged.

"Kirikhâl ma," says Thorin, and the words seem to be ripped from him. "Mithrilâl."

One of the healers makes a startled, wordless sound before clapping a hand over their mouth and pulling the others away. In the sudden quiet, Kili and Fili stare at Thorin, and Bilbo stares at them all, utterly perplexed.

"Ma itkhûzhi hi," says Thorin. "Ma garîfi êkurikûrng mutûkizu."

"Khi-" Kili breaks off, and covers her face with her hands, muttering "Mahal khajim mutûk!" After a moment, she lowers her hands and gestures towards Bilbo. "It should not take all your strength just to apologise to him."

Thorin does not look at Bilbo.

"You know, I really should start packing," says Bilbo, backing towards the entrance.

Thorin finds him in the little room set aside for Bilbo's use in Dale. Built for Men, it hardly felt little to Bilbo, for all it had none of the grand scale of Erebor. At least, until Thorin filled it with his somber presence, and the room seemed to shrink around him.

"She is right," says Thorin. "It is long past time I sought your forgiveness."

Thorin towers over him, his expression one that Bilbo might have called anger at the start of their journey, but he now sees is closer to sorrow - or, if it is anger, it is directed inward. He rests a hand on Thorin's arm and smiles up at him. "I have long forgiven you, Thorin - I only hope you can forgive me."

Thorin pulls away from him. "I have tried," he says, and stops.

"Right, well," says Bilbo, when Thorin says nothing further, and turns back to his pack, shifting and repacking its contents until they are quite out of order. He is a moment from turning it all out and starting afresh when Thorin finally speaks.

"I should take back my words and deeds at the gate," he says, pacing the small room. "You did only what a true friend would do, and I was too blind to see it.

"And now you are going back to your books and your armchair, and I have tried, but I cannot - how can I say that I wish us to part as friends when I do not wish us to part at all?"

Bilbo sits rather heavily on the bed.

"You want me to stay?" he asks.

Thorin nods. "I know I cannot ask it of you - cannot ask anything more of you, having led you into such peril -"

"No, no, no - no, Thorin -" Bilbo pauses, and pats the bed beside him. Thorin hesitates, but sits down, leaning on his knees and staring at the worn carpet beneath their feet. After a moment, Bilbo scoots closer and nudges him. "I'm glad to have shared in your perils, Thorin. Each and every one of them. It is far more than any Baggins deserves."

"Idjanûn mâhai, ni bâhazu," says Thorin. His voice is hard, but his expression has softened. When Bilbo slips his hand into Thorin's, the dwarf does not pull away, but lets out a ragged breath and leans towards him. "Mahgagînai, khama takûbi zu."

"Should you say such a thing to me?" asks Bilbo. "In your secret language, I mean - I suppose it matters not what you say, when I cannot understand it, but you and your kin have become quite incautious with your speech, and if I am to stay here then I cannot help but pick some of it up - I have quite a talent for languages, though I do say so myself -" He is cut off by Thorin's laughter.

He is considering insulting Thorin in Sindarin when he grows serious once more, and squeezes Bilbo's hand. "Khazâd-bâhel," he says, then, "Dwarf-friend. Few have been named such, but each has the right to learn our sacred tongue."

"Kazzad ba-hell," says Bilbo.

"Khazâd-bâhel," Thorin corrects him.

"Khazad-bahel," says Bilbo. "Hm, those vowels! If I were to stay, I would need a teacher to keep me right."

"If you were to stay, I would be glad to teach you."

"Bilbo Baggins, Khazâd-bâhel," says Bilbo. "You know, I rather like that."

Thorin's expression has quite softened, and his gaze is fixed no longer on the floor, but on Bilbo. "I am glad," he says, and it is Bilbo who must look away.

A thought occurs to him. "What was it you called her - Kili, I mean - that shocked everyone so? Mithrilaal?"

Thorin doesn't reply for a moment, tracing shapes on Bilbo's hand. Runes, Bilbo suspects, and does not interrupt his thoughts. "There is no word in Westron, I think," he says, finally.

"Mithril, you said, was silver steel," says Bilbo.

Thorin nods. "We called her kirikhâl for years - kirikh is our word for iron, and iron is our strength, so kirikhâl is - one who is wrought from iron, one who is -" He pauses.

"One who is strong?" Bilbo hazards.

"Stubborn would be more fitting," says Thorin.

"Stubborn? A dwarf?"

"She was marked stubborn even among dwarrow."

"Not so noble an epithet, then."

"No," says Thorin. "Though she made it her own."

"But now -"

"Mithril is ten times as strong as iron, and rare, now, for it has only ever been mined in Khazad-dûm. Mithrilâl is one who is unyielding, but also - treasured, without measure."

Bilbo thinks of the chainmail shirt in his pack, and looks up at Thorin. "So," he says, and swallows, his mouth unaccountably dry. "One may receive one name in one's youth, but later another, depending on one's character or actions. Or change your name for - love."

"One may be called many things over a lifetime, Barrel-Rider," says Thorin.

"Oh, I should never have told you all that," cries Bilbo. "But it hardly counts if you choose the name yourself."

"Luckwearer."

"Better than grocer!"

Thorin raises a hand to catch his chin, turning Bilbo's head towards him. "Amrâlimê," he says, soft as distant thunder.

"And what does that mean?" Bilbo asks, his eyes flicking to the sweet curve of Thorin's smile.

"I shall teach you," says Thorin, and kisses him.

 

~

 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on the Khuzdul: All the Khuzdul comes from the first version of Neo-Khuzdul created by the Dwarrow Scholar, partly because I started writing this two years ago and didn't want to change the half I'd already written when their revised dictionary was posted (which is turn partly because the new files are too large for my aging laptop to cope with, and partly because I'm a lazy sod). More importantly, the central thematic word - iron - is completely different. In the revised dictionary, iron is 'zirin' rather than kirikh - which obviously doesn't fit with my nice alliteration for Kirys Kirikhâl. 
> 
> A corollary to the 'I'm a lazy sod' excuse is that even going by the simpler rules and more limited forms of the original version, there's likely to be a lot of inaccuracy. Word order, in particular, has a tendency to be defined by what looks good rather than strict grammar. And I never did get my head round the fact that it doesn't have a word for 'to be'. 
> 
> To be honest other than the bits that Thorin translates for Bilbo, none of it needs to be translated. And because there's so much of it, and I find myself incapable of simply translating it, it doesn't actually fit in this note D:
> 
> So I've posted the full list of translations [over on Tumblr](http://sourassin.tumblr.com/post/137901144166/akh%C3%B9th%C3%BBzh), but I'll give you:
> 
> Akhùthûzh: to endure. Another side-effect of the gap in writing this - I meant to make more of this, a play on both endurance and forbearance, first in how Bilbo reacts to the perceived incest, then in how he - how they all - survive the battle, and then finally how he puts up with Thorin's continuing inability to communicate...
> 
> Kirikhâl: stubborn one. The dictionary has this as 'the unyielder', which I had initially taken as 'the unyielding', with stubborn being implied - one of the benefits of the writing gap is that the final movie implied that mithril is a dwarvish term, and I decided to shift the meaning slightly.
> 
> I have a bunch of headcanons around this verse, mostly entirely fluffy and relating to Fili and Kili - or Kirys, as she was - falling in love in Ered Luin and all the reasons behind her nickname. There's also the reason behind Thorin's unhappiness at her joining the quest, touched on in the story when he mentions the name change being an old tradition, and how they would have been betrothed young and named accordingly, which is - not so fluffy. Usually the matching names indicate siblings - none of the rest of the company have done the same thing - and usually 'brothers' really are brothers, but not always. So. Frerin.


End file.
